Amparo Bertram

06:07 pm: Have you eaten an eel today?
Today's yukata progress: I finished the okumi and the hem. Tomorrow I'll be ready to start the collar.

Adventure of the day: When I went grocery shopping, I stopped at the ATM to withdraw some money. However, the machine rejected my bankbook. Even after trying three times, it wouldn't work. Luckily, it was still business hours, so I waited in line for a teller, all the while imagining horrible scenarios of what might be wrong.

It turned out that the magnetic strip on the book had gone bad and needed to be recharged. It only took a few seconds to fix. <whew>

One added note: I wish it were possible to ride a bicycle sidesaddle. It takes all the fun out of wearing a skirt.

Update: Apparently today is Eat Eel for Stamina Day. The belief is that if you eat eel today, it will give you the energy not to succumb to the summer heat. (See what you miss out on when you're vegetarian?)

Comments

And don't you hate it when the ATM suddenly goes silent...& you think, Crap! It's swallowed my card/book now all my money's gone & I'll have to deal with all the bank people & it'll take forever to sort out and then the little bugger decides to spit out your card & money. Haha, gotcha! Loo~~ser. Damned things are alive, I tell ya.

Japanese ATMs are never silent. They're constantly talking to you. If you pause more than a couple seconds at any point, they repeat "helpful" (read: annoying) messages until you do something. On more than one occasion I have growled, "Hold your horses, for crying out loud!" at the darn things.

It is impossible for me to express how utterly charmed I am by the concept of an ATM writing to one's bank book. (I balance my check register once a month by trusting the bank's online statement, since I never bother to track ATM withdrawals and purchases.)

I hate it when stuff like that happens....I always think "OMG I'm out of money!" or that I've done something to the machine, etc. When my cable would go out, I used to panic that they had cut off my service because I hadn't paid my bill (when I had) or something. It was always MY fault first (not so much now after much mental re-programming LOL)

if you eat eel today, it will give you the energy not to succumb to the summer heat

Re: eel

Yet more proof that the Japanese are superior in all things. When the strip on my ATM card goes bad (has happened more than once, since I use my card for EVERYTHING) they have to order a brand new one with a completely different card number, leaving me with no debit card for a week and a bunch of screwed-up automatic payments. *grumble*

On a less complainy note, I love Japanese summer traditions. I recently found out about the one where people send each other midsummer greeting cards, like Christmas cards, to inquire after each other's health in case anyone has dropped dead of heatstroke. Do people really do that? The word that came up in one of my vocabulary lists was 暑中見舞い, "midsummer heat health inquiry." SO CUTE.

Yes, indeed. I've seen the advertisements for the postcards at the post office.

In fact, they not only send postcards, they send gift boxes. There's a huge section at the department store devoted just to summer gift boxes, containing things like flowers, beer, soap, coffee, all kinds of things. (Gift boxes are available year round, but they're HUGE in summer and winter. They have to set up a special counter to handle orders.)

Very interesting...

...that you would mention eels and magnetic strips in the same post on this day. A friend just told me that her children bought her a gift of a beautiful eelskin handbag while in Hawai'i. She loved it. Pretty soon her things with magnetic strips didn't work. It seems that the eelskin purse was the culprit, ruining several of them.

So, I guess, don't put your magnetic strips close to the eel, either. Don't carry magnets in your purse, and keep the magnetic strips in separate slits of your wallet so they don't contaminate each other. It *could* happen, I suppose.